Zamboanga Water Company Inc., a joint-venture company between Zamboanga City Water District and Manila Water Co. Inc., has recorded a cumulative recovered non-revenue water volume of 410,000 cubic meters in the second quarter of the year through its NRW or system loss reduction project.
The company said the volume represented an outperformance of 52 percent of its contractual target of 270,000 cubic meters during the period.
The 10-year contract which began in 2015 aims to reduce the water system losses in the city by implementing a network restructuring and active leakage reduction program.
The P300-million agreement between Zamboanga City and Manila Water aims to decrease NRW from almost 50 percent to 25 percent by the end of the fifth year.
The water firm will maintain the NRW up to the sixth year and extend technical assistance to the water district to ensure the gains of the project are maximized until the end of the 10th year.
Zamboanga Water said the network restructuring program involves the formation of 33 district metering areas that will be implemented until the end of year 2018. As of March, 26 DMAs have been commissioned, 18 percent more than the actual commitment of 22 for the period.
The active leakage reduction program focuses on extensive leakage detection and system repairs. Aggressive efforts for both programs have resulted in much lower NRW levels in the DMAs after only two years of operation.
“The water recovered through the project is now being re-distributed and supplied to households and establishments serviced by the water district which were previously experiencing low-pressure and inadequate water supply,” said Zamboanga Water.
It said the collaboration with the water district and continued implementation of best practices on leakage reduction were expected to further decrease the current NRW levels in the succeeding years.
“It is expected that by the time the NRW reduction phase of the project is completed in 2020, the system loss will be at 25 percent, with total NRW volume of water recovered reaching an estimated 27 million liters of water per day equivalent to cumulative NRW volume of 10.27 million cubic meter for five years,” the company said.